Copper at 8-month low in New York on China manufacturing

Prices fell as speculators reduced their positions

Copper slumped to the lowest price in almost eight months in New York after an industry report on Chinese manufacturing stoked concern demand in the biggest consuming nation is slowing.     

The Purchasing Managers’ Index was 50.9 in March, the National Bureau of Statistics and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today, compared with 50.1 in February and the 51.2 median estimate of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Readings above 50 indicate expansion.

Confidence among large Japanese manufacturers improved less than economists expected.     

“With hefty stockpiles in London and Shanghai, today’s manufacturing data fueled selling of copper,” said Chae Un Soo, a metals trader at Korea Exchange Bank Futures Co. in Seoul. China’s curbs on the property market also kept downward pressure on metals, he said.     

Futures for May delivery dropped as much as 1.8 percent to $3.34 a pound on the Comex in New York, the lowest price since Aug. 3. The contract was at $3.3535 a pound by 7:08 a.m. local time. The London Metal Exchange is closed today for a public holiday.     

China’s largest cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, tightened rules on home purchases after the nation asked local governments to step up efforts to cool the property market.     

Copper stockpiles monitored by the Shanghai exchange rose to 247,591 tons last week, according data by the bourse on March 29. That was the highest level in at least 10 years. LME inventories climbed to 569,775 tons, surging 78 percent in the first quarter, according to exchange data on March 28.     

Sterlite Industries
Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd., the nation’s biggest copper producer, fell the most in more than a year in Mumbai trading after shutting its smelter on the orders of the Tamil Nadu state’s pollution control board.     

The shares plunged as much as 5.6 percent to 88.50 rupees, the most since February 22, 2012.     

Billionaire Anil Agarwal-controlled Sterlite’s smelter in Tuticorin has faced controversy since at least Sept. 28, 2010, when the Madras High Court ruled the 400,000 metric-ton facility should be shut for breaching environmental standards.